A testing time aheadMR
K.C. Pant has begun the political dialogue on Jammu and Kashmir in right earnest. He has invited 20 odd groups of different shades of opinion for parleys without any preconditions. This in itself is a refreshingly positive gesture and it shows this country's open mind in the matter.

Right to recallA small town in Madhya Pradesh made big news last week by expressing through ballot its lack of confidence in the President of the Nagar Panchayat. The head of the Anuppur Nagar Panchayat in Shahadol district, Mrs Pallavika Patel, was shown the door following complaints of inefficiency.

Karunakaran cools downINFIGHTING is endemic in the Congress, but until now it used to be an indoor game in the Kerala unit. Public squabbling irritates the UDF partners and helps the rival Left Democratic Front. This is the factor that kept the inner-party heat at a reasonable degree.

The Congress way of doing thingsLast nail in the coffin of probityS. Nihal SinghIT IS the triumph and tragedy of Indian democracy that except for those who remain dedicated to violence in changing society, no political party, whatever its stated ideology, can escape the pull of the Congress way of doing things. And that way, as it has evolved over half a century and more, is faction-dominated, opportunistic, often immoral and self-righteous.

Farmers’ worry of WTO on agricultureP.K. VasudevaINDIA at the review committee meeting of the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has placed four demands for the protection of agricultural goods and protection of farmers. The first is the call for the developed countries to reduce their tariffs on agricultural products to provide easier market access to developing countries as laid down in the AoA.

REALPOLITIK

Of state funding and party code
P. RamanIMAGE building and creation of myths are age-old devices that were used to perpetuate dynasties and impose cultures and systems on others. In modern times, petty myths are periodically propounded as red herring to ward off sudden challenges to the political establishment.

Central Sikh League
The Central Sikh League has issued a notification pointing out that at its fifth session at Lahore it was decided that the Sikh League should run its own candidates for the Punjab Council and the Legislative Assembly in co-operation with the Congress, and saying that this decision was dictated by the experience of the past six years which showed that those returned through the various communal bodies could not work in the Councils harmoniously with the representatives of other communities.

MR
K.C. Pant has begun the political dialogue on Jammu and Kashmir in right earnest. He has invited 20 odd groups of different shades of opinion for parleys without any preconditions. This in itself is a refreshingly positive gesture and it shows this country's open mind in the matter. The response of various groups, especially those swearing by militancy and the All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC), is yet to be known. The major problem in this exercise is the stand of the APHC which is a divided house. The pro-Pakistani elements within the APHC have been pressing for Islamabad's direct involvement in a dialogue from the start. This is, understandably, not acceptable to India. The proposed dialogue is purely a domestic exercise. It involves different organisations belonging to the state, including the Shabir Shah group, two groups from Kargil and the Chief Executive of the Ladakh Autonomous Council. This is laudable since, in the past, the Centre had invariably overlooked the views and sentiments of the people hailing from Ladakh and Jammu. After all, the valley does not represent the whole of Jammu and Kashmir. But then the gun of the militants has been calling the shots to the disadvantage of the silent majority. In fact, the majority of Kashmiris have been used as a pawn by the disruptive forces working at the behest of Pakistan.

Mr Pant is definitely a good choice for holding meaningful talks with the various groups in Kashmir. He is a mature politician with the right temperament. However, the task before him is not all that easy because some groups are not masters of their own destiny. They go by the wishes of their patrons in Islamabad. This will be a major hurdle in Mr Pant's movement on the road to peace. It will be interesting to see how he overcomes this handicap. He will have to have a lot of patience and preservance to convey the right message to these groups, including the pro-Pakistani elements in the Hurriyat Conference. The APHC leaders must realise that this is the best possible opportunity for the restoration of peace in the state. They also must understand that the people of Kashmir are fed up with terrorism. They want peace and an effective end to the politics of violence.

The process of peace can indeed be very testing. But so long as New Delhi keeps its cool and tackles matters in a subtle and tactful manner, there will always be hope. Much will depend on Pakistan's activities. If General Pervez Musharraf is serious about resolving the Kashmir imbroglio, he must end cross-border terrorism and allow India to create the right atmosphere for parleys. Going by Islamabad's track record, this is a tall order. But then New Delhi has no choice but to continue its efforts to seek a peaceful solution to the Kashmir tangle.

A small town in Madhya Pradesh made big news last week by expressing through ballot its lack of confidence in the President of the Nagar Panchayat. The head of the Anuppur Nagar Panchayat in Shahadol district, Mrs Pallavika Patel, was shown the door following complaints of inefficiency. Madhya Pradesh is the only state to have given the voters the right to recall elected representatives at the grassroot level. The law was introduced at the initiative of Chief Minister Digvijay Singh. He was also responsible for introducing another legislation for giving more powers to elected representatives at the district and village levels. By placing the power to recall in the hands of the voters the Chief Minister introduced the necessary element of check and balance in the system of direct democracy. In Anuppur nearly 63 per cent voters expressed their lack of faith in the Nagar Panchayat President. Under the provisions of the right to recall three-fourth of the total number of elected corporators or councillors are required to forward their request to the Collector or the Commissioner. Thereafter the State Election Commission is required to announce a date for the voters to exercise their right to recall through secret ballot. It is unfortunate that the Anuppur case did not attract the kind of attention it deserved keeping in mind the lesson it has to offer to the elected representatives in Parliament and the state legislatures. The right to recall was an important element of JP’s famous campaign for total revolution in the mid-70s. However, instead of encouraging a national debate Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency in the country and JP and other Opposition leaders were put in jail.

The issue is, perhaps, more relevant today than during the Lok Nayak’s campaign for total revolution. The Election Commission keeps introducing new guidelines and redrawing the earlier ones for ensuring improvement in the quality of representatives of the people in the country’s legislatures. In this context the right to recall would be a powerful option available to the electorate for dealing with corrupt representatives as also those involved in criminal cases. Switzerland is the only country where the right to recall is available to the people for dealing with inefficient or corrupt representatives at all the levels of governance. In the USA only the states are covered by a similar law. The checks and balances built into the law ensures that it is not abused. Way back in 1921 the voters exercised this right for removing the governor, attorney-general and commissioner for agriculture. Since democratic institutions are constantly under attack from corrupt politicians a small beginning can be made by persuading other states and Union Territories to adopt the Madhya Pradesh model for dealing with the problem at least at the grassroot level.

INFIGHTING is endemic in the Congress, but until now it used to be an indoor game in the Kerala unit. Public squabbling irritates the UDF partners and helps the rival Left Democratic Front. This is the factor that kept the inner-party heat at a reasonable degree. This time a new element, a father’s love for his daughter, entered the calculation and even before anyone realised, Mr K.Karunakaran had created a grave crisis. He is an MP as is his son, Mr Muraleedharan. He wanted the party ticket for his daughter Padmaja and the high command refused fearing a public denunciation of dynasty building. But the veteran leader took the rejection badly, looking at it as a publicly administrated snub. He noisily resigned from the Congress Working Committee, rushed back to his state, and began marshalling his forces to set up rebel candidates against those of the other faction led by Mr A.K. Antony. All this on the eve of the Assembly election which may return the Congress-led UDF to power! The central leadership gave him a few days to nurse his overblown grievances and then relented. His group gets three more seats, taking the tally to 37, the same as that of the Antony group.

The patch-up is purely temporary. Mr Karunakaran has a long memory and the denial of the party ticket to his daughter has hurt him deeply. He has enlarged his grouse by saying that the leadership has always ignored him and has not consulted him even on affairs relating to Kerala. This is a catch-all charge and cannot be proved, nor can it be countered. Going by his record, he will renew his anti-Antony campaign after the election results are available. If the UDF wins, as it is widely expected to, and if the high command anoints Mr Antony as Chief Minister, as it most certainly will, he will enter the ring for the second round. He will demand that his son should be made state party chief with a threat to plunge the party into another turmoil. Mr Karunakaran indulged in brinkmanship, lacing it with a bit of blackmail. He has tasted victory and will perfect it to an art form. Therein lies the danger. There are Karunakarans in other states too and the central leadership has paraded its lack of self-confidence and also its disregard of discipline. The leadership does not have the iron-clad authority that it once had, nor are the Chief Ministers overtly submissive. To give in to a state rebel is to surrender whatever legitimacy it still has. A pity.

The Congress way of doing thingsLast nail in the coffin of probity
S. Nihal Singh

IT IS the triumph and tragedy of Indian democracy that except for those who remain dedicated to violence in changing society, no political party, whatever its stated ideology, can escape the pull of the Congress way of doing things. And that way, as it has evolved over half a century and more, is faction-dominated, opportunistic, often immoral and self-righteous.

What the two communist parties have to do with ideology, except in the vaguest sense, is a case in point. One of the surprises of the first dethronement of the Congress by the Janata Party in New Delhi was how readily the new collective in power embodied the Congress ethos in its working and structures, even to the extent of calling its party leadership the high command. Why the Congress adopted this military terminology in the first instance while swearing loyalty to nonviolence had best be left to psychologists.

It can be argued that the first change of power at the Centre in the seventies was a change in personalities, rather than ideology. The dominant element in the Janata Party was Morarji Desai’s Congress (Organisation). He was a quintessential Congressman. His right-leaning views were as flexible as the left-leaning stance of Indira Gandhi in waging war against the party oligarchs. In a poor developing country, all politicians are left-leaning in public, whatever policies they might follow. An explicit rightist party is a sure recipe for oblivion, as the unsung Swatantra Party found to its cost.

Against this setting, one of the Indian illusions was that the first real change of power at the Centre in ideological terms i.e., the coming to power of the new avatar of the Jan Sangh, the Bharatiya Janata Party, would herald a change. Many tended to disregard the conduct of the BJP in the states it ruled with a rapaciousness even surpassing that of the Congress. For the BJP had self-consciously advertised its principles of incorruptibility, probity in public life and discipline.

The Tehelka tapes brutally destroyed the BJP’s credibility as a party of rectitude, with the then party president caught on camera in the act of taking money from fictitious arms merchants. And the BJP’s act of aligning with the Asom Gana Parishad it had been decrying as anti-national to contest the state assembly elections was the last nail in the coffin of probity. As far as discipline is concerned, the ransacking of the BJP office in Assam by elements of the party opposed to the opportunistic alliance spoke for itself.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has suggested that greed is responsible for the prevailing mores in public life. Greed in the sense of keeping up with the Joneses is a predictable outcome of an embrace of consumerism. Consumerism is in itself inescapable in an era of globalisation and information technology, but the question we must ask is how India has plumbed the depths of corruption when other societies even more in thrall to consumerism can lead a largely clean public life. Partly, the answer lies in the glaring inequities to be found in the country; partly, in the loss of moral bearing. There is no moral compass to encourage the wrongdoer to return to the path of rectitude.

The BJP has now earned its stripes as a party in the mould of the Congress, as far as its mores are concerned. Regrettably and dangerously, what is left for the BJP to distinguish itself is its Hindutva agenda. It is a measure of the party’s
helplessness and confusion, which is sought to be camouflaged by the sophistry of the arguments used by its spokesmen in television chat shows, that its mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and other organisations of the Sangh Parivar are vigorously stirring the pot.

There might be an element of exaggeration in the criticism the BJP has faced in its saffronisation drive but there can be little doubt that the party’s representatives in office are assiduously working to place RSS-indoctrinated men and women in the structures of power. The RSS and its disciples in the BJP understand that education and propaganda are the two key elements in indoctrinating a new generation. Ministries responsible for education and propaganda (Information and Broadcasting) are firmly in BJP hands and the revamping of committees and organisations of various descriptions, however esoteric their ostensible goals, is part of the exercise.

In this respect, the BJP and its mentor are being true to themselves. If the object of the exercise is to convert India’s plurality into the straitjacket of a Hindutva society, having the right people in the right jobs is an effective way of going about it. But encouraged by the perceived weaknesses of the Vajpayee government, overenthusiastic party functionaries seem to be in a hurry to complete the job. It is as if the Sangh Parivar has come to the conclusion that the present government’s longevity is in doubt and hence the need to complete the government’s saffronisation as quickly as possible.

As the growing chorus of criticism in the media indicates, this tactic is creating greater resistance to the changes set in train. While a slow and deliberate saffronisation of the power structures would have invited few barbs, every dethronement of a recognised authority from a committee raises a storm and every circular requiring government staff to work on Good Friday leads to protests. Indeed, the country is alert to any move to alter the scheme of things.

While the Sangh Parivar’s planners are right in zooming in on education and the propaganda ministry, there is a fatal flaw in their plans. The corruption and opportunism rife in BJP ranks would imply that party officials will be prepared to betray their cause at the altar of greed and keeping up with the Joneses. In other words, the machinery to bring about the desired change is compromised.

There is little indication that the Sangh Parivar is aware of the perils it faces. One cannot bring about a social or ideological revolution if those who propagate it are purchasable commodities. That is the silver lining for those opposed to the Sangh Parivar’s agenda.

INDIA at the review committee meeting of the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has placed four demands for the protection of agricultural goods and protection of farmers. The first is the call for the developed countries to reduce their tariffs on agricultural products to provide easier market access to developing countries as laid down in the AoA.

The second is the proposal for a 50 per cent cut in import duties from the level existing on January 1 this year during the first year of negotiations for the AoA that has been made in a paper submitted jointly by India with several other developing countries.

The third is the call for a safeguard mechanism for all developing countries along with a provision for imposition of Quantitative Restrictions (QRs) under specified circumstances in case of a surge in the imports or decline in prices.

The fourth is a demand that as a special and differential measure, the developing country members should be allowed to maintain appropriate levels of tariff bindings keeping in mind their developmental needs and high distortions in the international market.

The paper on market access points out many products of export interest to developing countries that will continue to face high tariffs as the AoA commitments envisage cuts on items in which there is little trade. On the other products like sugar, rice or dairy products, high tariffs will continue. The Indian proposal, therefore, suggests that there should be a 50 per cent cut in tariffs during the first year of talks to build confidence among the less developed countries of the WTO. It should also ensure that the reform process continues during negotiations.

Illustrating the kind of high tariffs in the North, the paper quotes a joint WTO-UNCTAD study which found tariff peaks in the OECD countries reach 350 per cent and above in extreme cases for some products of interest to developing countries. The most important areas with highest tariff rates include the major agricultural staple foods, cereals, meat, sugar, milk, butter, and cheese as well as tobacco products and cotton. In the EU, the out of quota tariff for bananas is 180 per cent while in Japan the tariffs range between 460 and 600 per cent for dried beans, peas and lentils and in the USA, groundnuts in the shell attract a tariff of 164 per cent.

If the industrialised countries have high tariffs, and India is arguing for high tariffs in the Third World, our budget should have reflected Indian point of view. Instead, the Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, has maintained extremely low import duties of 50 per cent for wheat, 80 per cent for rice, 70 per cent for tea, coffee, copra, coconut, and only 45 per cent for soyabeans oil. India needs to enhance the duties commensurate with the duties of the industrialised world. The low duty structure is aimed at serving the interests of the MNCs like Monsanto and Cargill and not “safeguarding the interest of the farmers”.

The budget is totally silent on policies to prevent the collapse of farm sector especially the prices. Kisan cards are not of much use to farmers driven into debt and displacement by artificially low prices. Instead of ensuring that the farmers get a fair price for growing food staples and that the food security is not compromised, the Finance Minister has announced excise duty exemption only for the food processing industry.

India, therefore, needs to impose high rates for import duties for agricultural products to protect farmers. This gap between India’s negotiating position in the WTO and domestic policy weakens its stand in the WTO and is a threat to the farmers.

In the next Ministerial Meeting to be held in Muscat in November this year for the review of WTO implementation, India and other developing countries must insist on the level playing field for the developing countries and ensure that the developed countries have implemented all the Articles of the WTO by January 1, 2001 (six-year implementation period) so that they get market access.

The Indian consumers will now have a wider variety with the full scale dismantling of the remaining 715 export curbs at one stroke in the 2001-02 Export Import (EXIM) Policy, signalling the domestic industry to shape up or ship out as they will have to compete with global players. The salient features of the EXIM Policy announced by the Commerce Minister, Mr Murasoli Maran, on March 31 are:

War-room established to play a watchdog role in monitoring about 300 sensitive import items.

Import of second hand cars allowed subject to some riders, as also poultry and agriculture products and textiles. Import of farm products such as wheat, rice, maize, other coarse cereals, copra and coconut through state trading agencies only.

Export promotion schemes such as EPCG to be extended to agriculture exports.

Farm-to-port approach in the agri-economic zones and a new agricultural export policy on the anvil.

The most important thrust in the EXIM Policy is the thrust for agriculture, which of late has been languishing on stagnant domestic demand and low prices and could do with little market. Those who ship agri-produce will now get the export house/trading house status and other incentives attached with it. Agri-export zones (AEZs) are to be created with the help of the willing State Governments so that the best of the domestic produce such as the apples of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir or Alphonso mangoes of Maharashtra find their due markets overseas.

However, facilitation may not be adequate, because the most domestic produce fail to meet the global quality standards on a sustained, consistent basis. This means that State Governments and their agri-horticulture departments, research institutions, and biotechnological departments must take on their supportive roles more purposefully if quality is to be assured and agricultural incomes are to get a boost from exports.

The lifting of QRs also threatens human and animal health. EU is at present facing scare of mad cow disease and other factory farming linked epidemics and the majority of the Europeans are, therefore, adopting vegetarianism. After lifting of QRs India has opened the markets to health hazards through meat imports.

The WTO allows QRs on grounds of protection of animal and human health under Article XX and XXII of the GATT under sanitary and phytosanitary measures that should be invoked immediately to stop meat imports in India in the light of epidemic in the West. Prevention of Food Adulteration Act 1954 should be strictly enforced for all imported edible/food products.

The author is Visiting Faculty, International Trade, Panjab University, Chandigarh.

IMAGE building and creation of myths are age-old devices that were used to perpetuate dynasties and impose cultures and systems on others. In modern times, petty myths are periodically propounded as red herring to ward off sudden challenges to the political establishment. Successive administrations had used inquiry panels to delay impending political disasters with telling effect. This time the emphasis is on blaming the “system” for the politicians’ dishonesty and corruption.

The Tehelka exposures have brought about many such arguments. Myth number one has been that the rising burden of elections is the mother of all political corruptions. The routine cost of running a political party itself is quite high. Frequent elections, the argument goes on, forces the parties to tap funds from even undesirable sources. Not only from the traditional business “friends” with black money but any one who is ready to “help” is welcome. Everything is on quid pro quo. Mind you, in business there is nothing called a free lunch.

So if the very “need” for the funds is eliminated by way of state funding of the elections, the argument goes on, Bangaru Laxman and Jaya Jaitley might not have taken money from the arms dealers. Hence state funding of the elections as in some European countries and institutionalisation of business donations and making them through cheques, will eliminate political corruption. The whole argument is absurd. First, the state can never expect to meet the full election expenses of a political party. The expenses – like payments for crowd providers, advances to the vote contractors in slum clusters and plain favours to caste leaders in villages – are unrecorded and thus beyond legal payments from the Consolidated Fund of India.

At the most, this will help the political parties use the state funds to meet the formal expenses and the donations for shady operations. Like both the white and black money components in property deals. Instead of reducing the evil of money power in elections, this will only enable the parties to pump more “self-generated” funds into the election campaign and make the atmosphere vulgar. Stringent curbs on election spending, rather than supplementing funds, have been found more effective. T.N. Seshan’s war on ugly display of publicity did have a salutary effect.

Those who relate political corruption with elections or party funding are simply obfuscating an already complex process. In India, corruption, bribery and extortion at the level of the individual politician is cumulatively much larger than at the party level. Even in Laxman’s case, it is too naive to buy the claim that Rs 1 lakh he took was for the party fund. Apparently, the BJP is not fighting election in USA to demand the rest of the payment in dollars. In most cases, it is difficult to say how much of the kickback and bribe money go to the party coffer. After 1980, Indira Gandhi had strict instructions to route all big money funds through authorised persons. Now any one in any party is free to raise funds.

Barring some “pocket money” by way of materials etc, all parties have decentralised funding and spending for elections and other campaigns. Hence power pedlars, PSU grabbers, spectrum and phone licence pushers (a decade after the end of “licence raj”), protection seekers (as by the automobile lobby), tariff enhancers, service providers, defence deal agents and even the foreign firms seeking print orders for our currency notes have all to ‘donate’ to different person. The party or person who heads the respective ministry, individuals who could spoil the deal and the friends who lobby with the cabinet colleagues — all will have to be taken care of. Tehelka has amply illustrated the change of this money collection process from the Bofors days.

Similar is the process right from the tehsil levels. Much of the money go to individual pockets. Apart from the routine favours, there is the poll-eve fund raising. Neither state financing of the poll nor business funding by cheques is going to affect this kind of individual-level extortion. Even in the USA, the issue of business donation is under serious review. The controversial pardon given by Clinton to swindlers and criminal elements and the Bush Administration’s own blatant favours to the fund-givers have prompted some senators to review the entire question.

Myth number two is that corruption and kickbacks are all due to the absence of a code of conduct for party leaders. New BJP president Jana Krishnamurthy seems to think that his former party chief had sought payment of more kickbacks in dollars because the BJP did not have a written code specifying that bribery is bad. But he forgets that the BJP remained a party with a difference until 1998 without any formal code.. Political morality and ethics should come from a party’s commitment and conduct. In sharp contrast to the good old days, the BJP’s moral degeneration is complete. Written rules or codes cannot inculcate character and integrity. The rut in BJP began with the new generation of go-getters and usurpers and spread to bulk of the old guard – from the lower levels to top. This is the tragedy of the post-1998 BJP.

The BJP’s 1996 manifesto had pledged that all its MLAs and MPs would “make public” their entire income and wealth within 90 days of election. But despite persistent efforts, two-thirds of its MPs failed to comply with the pledge. Then Advani was forced to agree that instead of making the assets and income “public”, the MPs would only “submit” to the parliamentary party leader. Even this the BJP MPs resisted. They declined to provide the value of the assets like houses and landed property on the plea that it was purely subjective as in many places there was no prescribed official rates. Ultimately, the whole grandiose election pledge was dumped.

In view of this fiasco, that too at the peak of the BJP’s ideological euphoria, one can well imagine the futility of Krishnamurthy’s proposed code of conduct. He has already been compelled to exempt the MPs and MLAs from the code. The Congress too had a similar experience when it had evolved a code of conduct for its leaders. This was after the poll debacles in states in the early ‘80s. The code included flying of the party flag at the Congress leaders’ residences and on vehicles. For a few months the then working president Kamalapati Tripathy alone followed the code. Later he too had to fall in line.

Things are rapidly slipping out of control. For the new entrants, politics is a career and business. Every one is racing after the “ticket, vote and note” from the party. Once the ticket is obtained, “notes” will flow from the favour-seekers. A rather new trend in the relationship within the middle and higher level political hierarchy has been the an upward flow of funds. The leaders who can lobby for tickets feel pleased at the responses from his faction workers down below. This cosy arrangement makes the fight against corruption and kickbacks at the grass-roots level more difficult.

The Central Sikh League has issued a notification pointing out that at its fifth session at Lahore it was decided that the Sikh League should run its own candidates for the Punjab Council and the Legislative Assembly in co-operation with the Congress, and saying that this decision was dictated by the experience of the past six years which showed that those returned through the various communal bodies could not work in the Councils harmoniously with the representatives of other communities. The Central League calls upon all desirous of contesting the Sikh seats to send in their applications to it by the 24th April.

Bizarre but true, a monkey in Dunguripali town in Orissa’s western Bolangir district has caught a number of people by surprise by snatching money from their pockets to “buy” liquor from a shop nearby.

Residents of the town located about 360 km from state capital Bhubaneswar are having sleepless nights and the police too had all but thrown its hands up in despair.

“The monkey springs on unwary people and reaches for their pockets snatching whatever it can lay its hands on. Currency notes hold a great fascination for the monkey,” said Sarathi Pradhan, the owner of a watch-repairing centre.

“The monkey has been seen here for the last two weeks,” Pradhan says, adding he might have been domesticated and could have slipped away from his master.

“He comes here almost every day and hands over the money and gets his drink,” says Ramesh, the owner of the liquor shop. After fishing out a few currency notes the monkey goes on a boozing spree, he adds.

A police official says the primate has been brought to the local police station several times, but its habits have not changed. “Neither can we arrest him nor can we send him to jail. The forest officials have been informed to tackle the monkey,” he said.

Police suspect that the drinking of liquor is an old habit derived from his one-time master.
IANS

ESPN BABY

A Texas couple have named their baby son “ESPN” after his dad’s favourite sports TV channel.

Mum Erica Curiel didn’t like the idea of naming her third child after New York Yankees baseball player Tino Martinez.

But she had no qualms about naming him after the channel his dad Jason watches all day.

Apparently this is not the first time fans have given a child the “ESPN” moniker. The Corpus Christi Caller Times reports that a Michigan couple came up with the variation ‘Espen’ for their son last year.

True to his name, baby ESPN Curiel sleeps in a room with a set of goalposts. Three walls are painted to resemble an American football field and the fourth a baseball batter’s box.

THE SECOND
THING TO GO

Dr Howard Pomeranz, director of neuro-ophthalmology at the University of Maryland Medical Centre, says he has traced five men with permanent vision loss as a result of using the anti-impotence drug Viagra.

“Reports of serious visual problems have been extremely rare,” scoffed a Pfizer spokesman, noting the men involved all had vascular problems related to diseases such as diabetes and may have been prone to vision problems anyway.
Reuters

WANT A GROOM?
LEARN HOW TO ROLL "BIDIS"

Want a groom? Then learn to roll the “bidi” as fast as possible. Out of context though this sounds, for the rural women in Murshidabad district of West Bengal, nimble fingers decide whether they can find suitable grooms.

If a girl can roll 1,000 “bidis” a day she stands a very good chance in the marriage market. A bonus: Her parents do not have to pay dowry, which ranges between Rs 20,000 and Rs 30,000.

This district, which borders Bangladesh has a large Muslim population and “bidi” rolling is the backbone of its economic activities with 30 per cent of the people involved in it. The industry has a turnover of around Rs 25,000 million. Of the 450,000 “bidi” workers, an estimated three lakh are women who roll about 50 million “bidis” per day.

Parents of girls who can roll only 400 “bidis” or so in a day are in constant fear that they will not be able to marry their daughters. To avoid a situation “worse than death” they put their young daughters under special training for improvement in the skill. Most of the girls leave school to learn the art of “bidi” rolling.

Health risks in “bidi” rolling like asthma caused by tobacco dust, gout and arthritis are well documented. Tuberculosis amongst “bidi” rolling people too is common.
WFS

FAT PROFITS FOR
WEIGHT LOSS INDUSTRY

Britain’s diet industry is booming as increasing numbers of women clamour to lose excess weight. According to the European Union Office of Statistics, British women are the second fattest in Europe with 18 per cent of them classified as overweight as compared to 10 per cent in neighbouring France. These women are ready to try anything — from health tonics and exercise to special frozen foods — to look slim.

The health club market has doubled since 1994 and is now worth Ł 1.24 billion a year.
WFS

CARVING OUT AN IDENTITY

The Philippines has 52,000 Amerasias born of relationships between American servicemen and Filipino women. While the Americans were driven out of the country in 1991, these children and their caregivers face discrimination at every level.

“I have been asked why my children have a different colour and I have fought with teachers who want to know why their father is not attending the parent-teacher meetings,” said the mother of one such child.
WFS

AND NOW “KNIFE MASSAGE”

“You have a headache? Here,

let me hit your head,” offers George Pan. The massage therapist from Taipei, Taiwan, offers “knife massage” to his ailing patients. He gently taps them with very sharp 10-inch meat cleavers. “I don’t push or pull when I set the meat cleaver down so I don’t harm the patients,” Pan says, demonstrating the knife’s sharpness by using it to shave his arm. “Chop, chop, chop and the pain will go away.” The knives work better than acupuncture needles, he says, and can cure any disease by releasing the body’s stored energy and increasing blood flow. Most Western doctors dismiss such cures, saying there’s no proof they work.
AP

RESTORING THE AUSTRALIAN SNOWY

The Snowy Mountain Scheme in south Australia was an engineering marvel which tamed a great river in pursuit of electrical power and irrigation. Now moves are afoot to give the river back its pride.

A small army of workers has been labouring among the weed and willow-strewn boulders of a long-dry river bed near Jindbayne, a tiny Australian town, clearing the way for the reversal of part of the Snowy Mountains Scheme — one of the engineering marvels of the 20th century.

The bed used to carry the once mighty Snowy River which flowed east from the mountains of the same name into the Tasman Sea. Then, about 40 years ago, its massive melt waters were diverted west to power a huge hydro-electricity scheme before descending to irrigate once arid inland plains.

Both the Snowy Mountains Scheme and the wild river are etched into the Australian psyche. The former became the symbol of nation building, the latter, of national character. The first European explorers conjectured that there was a vast inland sea somewhere ‘over the mountains’ which stretch along this south-east tip of Australia, separating the coastal strip from the interior.

There wasn’t. But the Snowy Mountains Scheme nearly 200 years later helped turn the dreams of the explorers and visionaries into a partial reality.
Observer

Buddha said: “All the acts of living creatures become bad by 10 things and by avoiding the 10 things they become good. There are three sins of the body, four sins of the tongue and three sins of the mind.

“The three sins of the body are murder, theft and adultery.

“The four sins of the tongue are lying, slander, abuse and idle talk.

“The three sins of the mind are covetousness, hatred and error.

Therefore, I give you these commandments:

“Kill not but have regard for life.”

“Steal not, neither do ye rob; but help everybody to be Master of the fruits of the labour.

“Abstain from impurity, and lead a life of chastity.

“Lie not but be truthful, and speak the truth with discretion, not so as to do harm, but in a loving heart and wisely.

“Invent not evil reports.... Carp not but look for the good sides of your fellow beings.

“Swear not but speak decently and with dignity.

“Waste not the time with empty words... and keep silence...

“Covet not nor envy....

“Cleanse your heart of malice; cast out all anger, spite and ill will; cherish no hatred not even against your slanderer... embrace all living beings with kindness and benevolence....

“Free your mind of ignorance and be anxious to learn the truth...

—The Ten Commandments of Buddhism.

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Oftentimes I have hated in self defence; but if I were stronger

I would not have used such a weapon.

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How stupid is he who would patch the hatred in his eyes with the smile of his lips.

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Desire is verily never quenched by the enjoyment of objects of desire; it only increases further as fire with butter.